How to work on my weaknesses after not doing well on Sept LSAT

JayCkon24

Hi, first time poster long time lurker here..

I just wrote my LSAT a few days ago after studying on and off for over a year.
I'm certain I did not do well though because of messing up pretty majorly on the LG and RC section.
I think I had some anxiety and completely froze up when it came to the Logic Games section and spent way too much time overanalyzing the first two games and was only able to finish 2 1/2 of the games so that left me guessing the rest of the questions and the last game. I was really bummed about this because the games themselves did not seem like they were too difficult but the pressure just really got to me and I had to re-read things over and over and just psyched myself out.
How can I get more confident and faster at the LG games? I've printed out all the games that JY has talked about in the curriculum and have been redoing them but if I encounter something new I always freeze.

RC was also a struggle for me and I only got through 3/4 passages and completely guessed on the fourth passage. The timing just really screws me over where I only get through 3 of the 4 passages even when doing my practice tests. Can someone please provide me with some advice on how I can get through all 4 passages?

I'm pretty certain at this point I will cancel my score because I don't want to screw myself in case I get a really low score. I would like to retake and do the December LSAT after working on these weaknesses. I only have a few months left so I want to make good use of my time.

Any insight would be appreciated!

BlueBell

what made a huge difference for me with the LG section at least, and if you do this already then ignore this, was when i started drawing out new game boards next to every question instead of working it out on my master board and erasing. not only does the 2nd way make it very messy and harder to keep track of, but its a huge huge time saver to have your past work to look back on for future questions and i usually got to eliminate 3 or sometimes 4 answers just from seeing what has and hasnt happened yet on previous charts. also, dont be afraid to split your board if you see there are 2 or 3 or ever 4 options of how to chart can look, it may seem time consuming but i find that it always pay to do that and you get your time back and more. you should practice making all the inferences you can when making your initial board, if theres an A before B rule, write in that A cant be last and B cant be first, even things that seem obvious are helpful to have visually available, also very important to keep track of if there are peices that dont have any rules or the general distribution of how many peices there are how many fit how many places they can go and just kind of think it through a bit a familiarize yourself with the game rules before you dive into it, always ask when making a chart for a question which peices are left. Past that its really just about doing enough practice that your familiar with all the different riddles they can throw at you, there are only so many variations they can make in these games, so the more comfortable you get with them and the more of them you encounter the better you will be at them.

As for RC, my advice is to really invest the time is reading the passage careful, even if you are a slow reader and think you wont have time, it always pays off to spend the extra time reading the passage and your questions will end up going twice or three times as fast. Underline things, even if you wont ever look back at it, circle different points of view or shifts in attitude, bracet off important areas of the passage, even mark parts that you didnt quite understand so if theres a question about something you dont remember from the passage you can check there, take a second and think about what you just read at the end of ever paragraph. i know all these things take time but it really allows you to fly through the questions once you get to them and ends up saving you time and getting you much more questions right. lastly i think the most important thing to note with reading comp is that although it seems subjective, your not picking the "Best" answer. there is only 1 correct answers, the other 4 are all wrong for one reason or another. so once you eliminate the obvious ones, look back on the other 2 or 3 and see what could potentially be wrong with them, knowing there must be something, it could be a tiny technicallity in the wording, a qualifyer they slipped in, a switch of one word so another familiar word from the passage but not the one that makes sense here, there will always be something wrong with all but one of the answers, you just need to find it.

JayCkon24

@BlueBell
Thank you for the suggestions!
What you said about Logic Games is something I'm really going to try to do. I always just make my game board, write down the rules and dive into the questions without spending too much time thinking about more things I can infer or splitting up the gameboard. I think Im just afraid ill lose precious time that I could be answering questions and hope that i'll infer those things along the way. But so far that hasn't been working out very well for me so I know Im screwing up somewhere so I will do that. And another thing you mentioned about drawing and erasing on the master gameboard is something I do quite often because I don't want to waste time redrawing. That's something I just need to get into the habit of doing. I think i really just need to create better habits with LG because all those things are really slowing me down..

As far as RC goes I do underline main points and it hasn't helped me very much as I spend too much time on the questions anyhow. But I will try to do what you suggest and try to spend more time on the passage upfront and see if it helps me get through the questions faster.

Thank you very much for the suggestions once again. They were helpful.

BlueBell

anytime goodluck!